


Fifty words from a journey underground

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Chirrut is a Troll, F/M, Feels, Fifty one-sentence fics, Fluff, Gen, Implied Character Death, Some Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, all my heroes deserve a hug, happiness, mostly but not all rebelcaptain, multiple AUs, some AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: My first attempt at a "fifty words, fifty one-sentence fics" piece.All fifty words were collected (with sometimes the printed word being seen, and sometimes the thing) during the course of a single 40-minute journey on the London Underground last month.





	Fifty words from a journey underground

**1 Circle**

“I knew that when you met me, you’d realise why you needed to meet me,” Chirrut says, and ignores how Baze laughs at the circular argument.

**2 District**

The map in Cassian’s hand confirms that their targets are spread across prisons in seven different districts, and forces will be dangerously over-stretched unless they reduce their objectives; but that will mean leaving someone behind.

**3 Line**

“Everyone, take hands and form a line,” Bodhi says “and I’ll teach you a traditional Jedhan dance - if you, if you’d like, I mean, you don’t have to...” and then he smiles, as the smiling crowds link hands all around him.

**4 Embankment**

For now, the earthen wall is holding, but it shakes more each time another shell lands, and Jyn is beginning to doubt they can hold out much longer.

**5 Darkness**

Kafrene is a hell-hole of durasteel alleys, jostling crowds, hot acidic rain falling into the liminal darkness; already he’s having nightmares, and he hasn’t even found the contact yet.

**6 Dreams**

If she could just curl into his arms one more time and feel his breath on her skin she could forget her anger and pain and _everything_ ; but Cassian can only come to her now when she sleeps, in the insubstantial touch of dreams.

**7 Voltage**

“It just needs a tiny spark there to trip the locks for the whole building; Kay, if you would be so kind as to - ? –“

**8 Repeat**

Cassian has lost count of the number of times he’s said it now, and every time he thinks she doesn’t believe him; he won’t leave her behind, no matter what, he won’t, no matter where or why, **he won’t** and there’s no point in her telling him to.

**9 Green**

“Seems like giving toys silly names may be a heritable trait after all,” Jyn says, grinning as she picks up her son’s three fluffy knitted tooka-cats, Greeny, Bluey and Knobbly.

**10 Tired**

He’s almost at the end of the mission, and the end of his strength, and Cassian finds himself muttering “It’ll get the job done, it’ll get the job done” as he drives himself to go on; exhausted past reason, shaking hands and aching mind, just one more task to do, and then one more...

**11 Northbound**

“You’re my compass, you know that,” Jyn says quietly, holding him “You keep me facing true north.”

**12 Moment**

He’ll remember this moment, Cassian thinks as the light comes and goes across Jyn’s face, and everything he’s ever rejoiced in or regretted reaches its culmination; he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life.

**13 Snacks**

Bodhi is fascinated by the variety of snack foods the Rebellion has; their mess halls and wardrooms serve good plain fibre and carbs and vat-protein, indistinguishable from the Empire, but every race of beings in the Alliance brings their own food culture with them, and the occasional days of celebration conjure forth every sweet and savoury treat he’s ever dreamed of, and some he most certainly hasn’t.

**14 Dirty**

His hair is a dirty tangle, his uniform is torn and he reeks of sweat, and it seems like every millimetre of his skin is stippled with grey dust, but Jyn runs to him and with a gasp he grabs her and clings.

**15 Mind**

Baze doesn’t really mind when he hears Chirrut tell people the Force always helps him; he knows that the Force chose Baze to help him, a long time ago, so it isn’t strictly speaking an untruth, just a matter of perception.

**16 Won’t**

“I need you to turn around and go, now, Jyn, please, you gotta get out while you still can!” he hisses into the concealed comm; but he knows even as he says it that she won’t.

**17 Gap**

When Jyn opens her eyes the second time, she can move again, though it still hurts a little, and she turns her head and sees Cassian lying still, pale as death but for the livid scars of newly-treated burns that flame across his face, his arms, his breast; and she wants to touch him, but their beds are too far apart to reach and she can only whimper and pray for him to wake.

**18 Kinky**

Cassian grins in the dark and says “Now I want you to imagine I’m hiding under your desk,  and you didn’t realise until you sat down to work; and maybe you aren’t wearing any stockings…” and as Jyn gasps on the comm his grin broadens, because oh boy, he can go places with his imagination, if she’ll just let him.

**19 Boots**

As the smallest child in the cell, Cassian has borne his share of practical jokes and managed to scrape forth a smile every time, but the morning he wakes to find his boots and socks hung from a comms aerial thirty feet off the ground, he cries for almost a whole minute, barefoot in the frost.

**20 Courage**

“Think of – think of Jyn Erso!” Poe says, urgent and ardent and so scared he’s angry “Think of Cassian Andor! – they must have felt utterly alone, even more so than any of us, and they had no reason at all to hope, yet they found the courage, they found the strength of will to save the rebellion!”

**21 Cold**

He used to dream of a base where the days weren’t perpetually sunny, of nights when the air was neither hot nor humid; Cassian pulls his parka on over two jackets and two woollen sweaters, a shirt and long-sleeved thermals, and reflects on the irony.

**22 High**

In his last moments of consciousness, he spots and trips a connection, and sends a turbolift plummeting from thirty storeys high, Krennic and his ‘troopers screaming on the internal comms; and there’s a satisfaction, in those final nanoseconds, knowing he’s increased Cassian’s chances of survival by almost 8%.

**23 Underground**

The passageways are constricted and dark, and at times he’s reduced to crawling on his belly, but _They’re here somewhere, they’re relying on me, I’m going to find my team_ is the only thought Cassian allows himself, as he worms forward into the nightmarish twisting cave.

**24 Rain**

“I know one day it won’t bother me,” Jyn says expressionlessly, looking out at the steady grey rain.

**25 Platform**

It’s been quite a journey, from reprogrammed Imperial, mistrusted by everyone, to rebel hero sharing a platform with a veteran as renowned as R2-D2, and if he possessed facial musculature K-2SO is 85% certain he would be smiling.

**26 Barking**

There’s a noise in the distance suddenly, guard-beasts snarling and yelping, and Bodhi grins and steers the escape ship that way.

**27 Monument**

_From this spot the crew of Zeta-class shuttle SW-0608, better known as Rogue One, took off on their final voyage;_ it’s a simple plaque, with simple words, mounted on a wall in the deserted base, and already the forest is beginning to wrap it with shadows and leaves, and hide it from memory. 

**28 Caution**

“They do realise that’s not my preferred MO, right?” Jyn asks him tetchily, and behind her Baze gives a bark of affectionate laughter.

**29 Temple**

“I can’t build a new Jedi Temple, I know those days are gone,” Luke says “but I want to start a training school, and it would mean so much to me if you’d join me there, Bodhi.”

**30 Crowd**

It isn’t his preferred escape route, it puts hundreds of civilians in danger if he’s spotted, but with no time to think and no choice but to run, Cassian pushes into the crowd, and loses himself.

**31 Stairs**

“The structure needs either elevators or an access ramp,” K-2 points out a tad wearily “or you can say goodbye to getting a single astromech to work here – much less any less-abled organics.”

**32 Pressure**

Cassian has taught himself long ago to deal with the stress, with the grief and shame, the hate and the longing for vengeance, he compartmentalises them and carries them, locked down and left to steam inside, and yes, he knows, repression turns one into a fucked-up mess in the end; and yes, he knows also that he won’t live long enough to have to deal with it.

**33 Delays**

“Nearly there now,” Bodhi says “you’ll soon be in triage” and he presses the cold, weak hands on either side of him, and hopes.

**34 Stain**

There’s blood on his shirt cuffs, but he doesn’t have time to clean it off; Cassian pulls down the sleeve of his leather jacket to cover the marks, and hurries on.

**35 Posters**

The first time Jyn meets Hera Syndulla she greets her with an unthinking “Hi”, only to realise moments later that they’ve never actually met before; it’s just that she’s seen the Twi’lek general’s face on a thousand wanted posters.

**36 Out**

“You know I can’t pull it out, you know that, right?” Jyn pleads, trying to keep her hands from shaking as she holds gauze against the torn flesh of Cassian’s side, and steadies the bloody shrapnel protruding from it.

**37 Choose**

He looked at the blaster in her hand, and at his doubts, and made the conscious choice to give what was asked of him; careful, contingent, incomplete, but trust nonetheless.

**38 Fresh**

“No, Baze, we need to go that way, I can feel it,” Chirrut says, steering his husband firmly towards the smell of fresh herbs and ripe fruit coming from the marketplace.

**39 Danger**

He’s been taught for years that emotions like these are dangerous, that they make him vulnerable; never this, that they would give him something more to fight for, and illuminate all the other truths with their strength.

**40 Sunshine**

He used to live guided only by the light of the rebellion, but seeing Jyn now in the midday sun, grinning at him from the blinding snowfield as she pulls on her goggles, he’s glad beyond all measure to have lived to be reminded not all bright things are abstract.

**41 Watching**

There’s something terrifying about how still Cassian is when he sleeps, and without that look of perpetual alertness he just looks like a desperately thin boy who’s been tested to breaking point too many times; and if it breaks a bit of her as well then fine, let it, but she’ll keep watch over him when he can’t protect himself, if it means staying awake all night and all the next day.

**42 Heart**

If his father could have seen this happen it would break his heart, how every day Fest moves further from any semblance of a democracy; but Jeron Andor is dust and there’s no-one now to remember him or his dreams of peace, no-one but Cassian left.

**43 You**

“It’s you,” Jyn said in a small voice, very tightly controlled even for her “it’s you and it always will be, and I don’t know how to do this, but I’ll try, if you want me to.”

**44 Strike**

That was the year the ‘troopers came, when the refinery workers went on strike and both Phrikacor and Fest itself were brought under direct government control; and Cassian Andor turned six without a birthday party.

**45 Baker**

Jyn is practically salivating as she surveys the buffet, filled with salads and fresh cheeses, stuffed melon, nuna and onion pies, and taking pride of place at the end, one of Bodhi’s trademark sticky honey tray bakes.

**46 Street**

“Demonstrations are a legitimate form of community political action,” Papa said “there’s no reason to suppose we’ll be shut down by –“ but there was already shooting in the next street.

**47 Infinity**

According to Chirrut, souls that bond with absolute love are able to find one another forever, no matter how many lifetimes they pass through, and Baze remembers believing the same, and hopes that is enough; and then the light blinds him, and the pain ends.

**48 Announcements**

Births: Andor-Erso, a boy, Esperanz Galen, weighing 3.4 kilograms, born 7.35am Centaxday last; mother and son are both doing well and Jyn and Cassian would like to thank their friends and family for all their love and support.

**49 Sandwiches**

“Sandwiches are a Jedhan invention,” says Chirrut, waving his and grinning serenely, “and not a lot of people know this, but they’re named after an ancient cult, the Sand Witches of the southern tablelands whose devotions all involved consuming too much bread.”

**50 Home**

When he comes-to at last, she’s right there, at his bedside, and although it still frightens Jyn to even think of having a home, she reaches for his hand, and her hesitant lips stammer into a smile that says everything she cannot.


End file.
